Spiritual capitalism? Global fitness brand lululemon comes to London

As global fitness brand lululemon opens a store in London, Susannah Butter investigates the colourful company that inspires mass worship in devoted yogis

Wednesday 2 April 2014 11:21 BST

The Royal Opera House was packed. Last month 400 Londoners donned their brightest Lycra and headed to Covent Garden to do downward dogs to live orchestra music. Afterwards they toasted their achievement with prosecco and raw chocolate. It was all free.

This event was put on by Canadian company lululemon to celebrate the opening of its first European shop last Friday — a 3,100 square foot yoga emporium in Covent Garden.

Lululemon has already conquered the LA lovelies and is worn by everyone from Kim Kardashian to Rosie Huntington Whiteley. Its USP is fitness wear that looks good in a studio or around town, all while showcasing your yoga body.

The logo looks like an Omega symbol but is actually a stylised A that was made for the first letter in the original brand name “athletically hip”.

Although the Covent Garden shop is lululemon’s first official London branch it has been introducing itself to the city for the past two years, with showrooms in Richmond, Islington, Chelsea and one in Marylebone on its way. During the Olympics the company put on free yoga events, it sells its brand in studios and has befriended London yoga teachers, appointing them lululemon ambassadors. Ellen Moorman of Indaba studios says, “being an ambassador gives you exposure, you can teach at the lululemon showrooms, are given support and go on trips to Vancouver. I’d love to see lululemon’s marketing budget.”

Its new CEO Laurent Potdevin, formerly of TOMS shoes, is visiting London today and will take part in a class at Indaba Studios. The yoga community is delighted. “If you go to any yoga class in London at least 25 per cent of people wear lululemon. It’s very popular,” says Moorman of Indaba.

A week after the Royal Opera House event, Amanda Casgar, a community manager at lululemon, says: “a woman ran up to me in the street and told me that event had changed her life”.

Casgar says this is the perfect illustratrion of how lululemon is more than a place where you can buy “hotty hot shorts” for £52. “We have a very strong culture and are a value-based company. Our mission is to elevate the world from mediocrity to greatness.” Jim Collins’s Good to Great and Ayn Rand are in the employee library.

Founded in 1996 by outspoken Canadian Dennis “Chip” Wilson, lululemon now has a market value of $7.1 billion (£4.3 billion) and 255 shops worldwide. Last year it had a brush with controversy that would disturb even the most Zen-like of yogis. After some of its leggings were recalled for being too sheer Wilson blamed the women wearing them, telling Bloomberg TV: “...some women’s bodies just actually don’t work for it [the product]... It’s about the rubbing through the thighs...” The comments were criticised as exclusionary. He posted an apology to “the people of lululemon” on YouTube but was criticised again for not saying sorry to customers.

This was not Wilson’s first gaffe. In 2004 Mr Wilson told National Post Business magazine that he chose the name “lululemon” because L is not in the Japanese vocabulary. “It’s funny to watch them try to say it,” he said.

Last year, Wilson took a back seat at the company, resigning as chairman, but remaining on the board.

But generally, lululemon is known for its cheery approach. Sales assistants are called “educators” and customers are “guests”. Healthy eating is encouraged, with “educators” sharing recipes for quinoa-based dishes and discussing the relative merits of juice fasts.

One London yoga studio owner says: “I’ve never dealt with a company that is so positive. The word ‘meeting’ is banned, you say ‘connect’ instead, and the main aim of each connect is to ‘surprise and delight’. All the employees are quite similar and company culture is very ingrained.” Employees are encouraged to set 10-year goals and share them, pinned up in the office and on their email sign offs. Casgar says: “What blew me away about working here was creating a strategy for my life. It made what I wanted easy to achieve.”

After a year at the company, all staff are invited to take a three-day course with Landmark Worldwide, which defines itself as “an international personal and professional growth, training and development company”. Landmark and lululemon have no financial ties and they are independent.

The $600 bill for the Landmark course is footed by lululemon, “as a gift”, says Casgar. It isn’t mandatory but Casgar says: “The results of the Landmark course are so amazing that why wouldn’t you get involved? Most people do. For me, Landmark was about understanding personal responsibility. It’s such a gift to have that relationship and be surrounded by others with the same relationship. The culture of goal-setting is contagious.”

Lululemon inspires loyalty. But Landmark, the organisation with which its employees take courses has faced controversy in its history.

Landmark grew out of EST, founded by Werner Erhard, now 78, who started out in his teens as a car salesman. Erhard was behind the early days of the personal growth movement in 1970s California and coined the phrase “Thank you for sharing”. He founded EST, which Jeff Bridges and Yoko Ono were associated with, and then became Landmark. Today it has a huge following, with 115 locations in 20 different countries, including an office in Camden. More than two million people participate in its seminars.

These seminars are intense three-day courses, where people are encouraged to experiment with fresh behaviour and ideas to improve the quality of their relationships and the manner in which they enjoy their lives.

The theories are said by one journalist who participated in a Landmark programme to be a mix of existential philosophy and motivational psychology, taking in aspects of Freud and Zen Buddhism. Landmark explains there is no psychology - motivational, Freudian or any other sort: their programmes are “ontological in design and phenomenological in methodology”. Deborah Beroset-Miller, the Director of Public Relations at Landmark says: “Our programmes are rigorous, designed to make a life altering difference to people’s performance and satisfaction in life. They are for profit but compared to other personal development programmes they are affordable.”

Since 1991 Erhard has been distant from the company. He moved away from the US after allegations of incest, tax fraud and abuse. These were all dropped. Indeed, the IRS paid him $200,000 in compensation over the fraud claims and Time Magazine reported that the incest and abuse allegations had been retracted. He said in an interview with the Financial Times that he left the country on his solicitor’s advice and has been based in the Caribbean ever since. But he regularly returns to the US to give lectures and presentations, including at universities such as Harvard and Dartmouth. Landmark is now run by his brother, Harry Rosenberg. It says: “There has never been any judgment against Erhard other than one in which he was not served, he was out of the country and the court rendered a default judgment expressing no opinion regarding liability and at the end of the trial the court determined that Erhard’s course did not harm.”

The history of Landmark has encountered challenges. In France, a report of the 1995 Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into Cults had listed Landmark as a “cult” – an allegation that the organisation strenuously denies.

Landmark says “it was inappropriately included on the list” and was never contacted or afforded an opportunity to be heard and “present overwhelming and credible evidence that is was not a sect”. When it tried to correct the record, it says the French government explained that the Commission had been dissolved and so “there was no entity left to address the error”. It cites internationally recognised professionals who have reviewed its programmes. One, Dr Raymond Fowler, former CEO of the American Psychological Association, has said: “In my opinion, The Landmark Forum is not a cult or anything like a cult, and I do not see how any reasonable, responsible person could say that it is.” Landmark has successfully opposed a number of legal suits brought against it. It says: “With more than two million people having participated in our programes over the last two decades, there has only been a handful of lawsuits filed against Landmark, an extraordinarily small number for any company. In none of the cases was Landmark found to have harmed any participant.”

At lululemon it was Wilson’s personal experience that led him to Landmark. Courses with Landmark will continue under the new lululemon CEO. Casgar says Wilson “had a great experience at Landmark and wanted to give that as a gift to people who work at lululemon.” His parents divorced when he was 12 and his family struggled with money. He has spoken about having problems with control, that Landmark helped him with.

Casgar says: “With anything that is really popular there is always that tendency to call it a cult. It probably comes from not being involved personally.”

For lululemon Landmark’s work is an extension of its ethos of improvement. It says: “We have had nothing but positive feedback from staff — they say it has not only helped them in their professional lives but also in their personal lives and made them more confident.”

Meanwhile, lululemon is working on its sheer leggings, it has “tightened the tolerance range of what is acceptable in the luon fabric”. Under Potdevin, there is a drive to spread around the world. Casgar says: “Laurent has great global experience and this store is one of what we hope will be many.”

Potdevin says “2014 is an investment year. We are returning to our design-led roots, providing an exceptional guest experience and sharing the stories of who we are and what we stand for with confidence and humility.”

This ethos is what lululemon keeps returning to. It is “above all committed to community”. Lululemon says “this commitment is driven by our values — quality, product, integrity, balance, entrepreneurship, greatness, and of course, fun — which are lived by our people, are intrinsic to the success of our business, and are also at the heart of our unique company culture.”

It is this that appears on its Facebook page and postcards, with messages such as “dance, sing, floss and travel”, “sweat once a day” and “visualise your eventual demise. It can have an amazing effect on how you live in this moment.”

If the turnout at the Royal Opera House is anything to go by, London is game for donning Lycra.

As for being elevated from mediocrity to greatness, and the links with Landmark, we will have to see.